Awake in Advent…3 – 9 December 2016

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.  The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.  You also must be patient.  Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.  Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.  See, the Judge is standing at the doors! [James 5:7-9]

I’m a bit embarrassed to come over all lyrical about yet another couple of Greek words – but there are two of them here, and they matter if we are awake in Advent.  This time we are not in St Paul, we are in the Letter of James.  I enjoy James, partly because some of the big names have had problems with it.  Martin Luther allegedly called it the epistle of straw.  So my rebellious and contrary spirit alerts me that James must have something going for it.  Also, here in James we are back among Jews, Jewish Christians.  Maybe we are even in Jerusalem. The writer of this letter is traditionally James, the brother of Jesus.  It’s possible, but nobody knows for sure.

The first of our words is patience… be patient…  They are impatient for Jesus to return.  So here we have the first teaching of a quality of heart and mind which mature Christians will have learned in any age.  God has not intervened to make everything right, and may not.  Some might even say, it is not typical of God to intervene.  We are to learn a faith, taught by Jesus, which is not hanging around for everything to come right.  The writer repeats being patient three times in three consecutive sentences.  The Greek word is makrothumia (μακροθυμια) -- in 21^st century idiom it is something like being in for the long haul.  Our faith needs to be formed and suited for reality as well as hope.  Once we have accepted that, we begin to see how truthful and liberating it is.

But more than that, we need the contemplative quality St Paul expressed when he wrote, I have learned to be content… [Phil. 4:11]  In adverse circumstances we may indeed suffer but we choose not to become victims.  Being patient is having decided that Christ’s risen life is now, not later when everything may be as it should.  So it also entails seeing what I can do to make things better.  And it is never forgetting how to give thanks. 

Then, the writer drops into his letter something utterly practical and immediate:  Beloved, do not grumble against one another…  The Greek word originally means what medicine calls a narrowing, stenosis.  Grumbling constricts life.  Gossip tries to derive life out of other people’s hardships and sorrows (Schadenfreude).  Grizzling simply unveils our own inner poverty.  In the Christian community all that behaviour is deeply destructive.  Benedict forbad grumbling from his congregations.  His Latin word was murmuro, murmuring (wonderfully onomatopoeic), muttering in complaint and criticism – and nothing constricts and poisons a fellowship quicker. 

So be still, and silent, and centred in reality, and in the present, and in the presence of God who is always in our presence.